


Even a saint must die

by TheSaintOfAllSaints



Series: Brief moments in the Boss' life [2]
Category: Saints Row
Genre: A few variations of fucks are used too, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Honestly boss is just sad that johnny is gone whelp, what are healthy ways of coping with your emotions????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-09 00:23:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11657757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSaintOfAllSaints/pseuds/TheSaintOfAllSaints
Summary: Keeping your emotions is not healthy, especially when your friend dies and Boss kept it in for a few days too long.orBoss is sad-angry that Johnny is gone and won't admit it.





	Even a saint must die

**Author's Note:**

> Eyoo, so I decided to try my hand at writing fics again and this 'master piece' came about at 3 am or something, idk.
> 
> So lemme know if it's as crappy as I think it is.

It really hits him that Johnny is gone about three days later after the plane crash. He wakes up one morning, Saturday, the closest thing to a lazy day and the day that Johnny would wake up on his couch. Like clockwork, each and every Friday after Aisha’s and Carlos’ death the two of them would have a game night, a guy night if Pierce joined them. Newest, hottest games for any console would be bought and stored for the occasion and sleep wasn’t welcomed until one of them passed out or the game was finished. Beers would litter the ground and at times even a variation of drugs could be found. It was a mutual decision that both of them should stop smoking or snorting the first chance they got, a simple realisation that they weren't getting any younger. Now, drugs were saved for special occasions, birthdays, holidays, a job well done.

Now he understood why he felt like he forgot something the day before as if something was missing. Johnny. Pierce even called offering a night out in the nearest pub, but Boss declined, a part of him waiting for Johnny to come knocking with two six-packs, that stupid smile plastered on his face and an even stupider remark.

It was also routine for Johnny to wake up first, early in the morning and make coffee before coming into the bedroom to kick him out, calling him a "lazy motherfucker who had important shit to do" or yelling “Wake the fuck up we're blowing shit up today”. So when Boss wakes up at 2.17pm and the crib seems eerily quiet is when his chest begins to hurt. A dull ache that leaves him hollow after a few minutes, as if someone took a spade to his chest and dug a hole in it. He writes it off as him getting sick, he's been feeling off since jumping out of that plane. The wind on his way down must've got him.

It took Boss another half hour to get out of bed, to get the coffee started and the eggs to fry. He knew that the day was going to be shit already, the emotions that he was feeling were being written off as sickness, stubborn to admit what they were. He felt slow, weighed down as if he woke up from his coma again, ontop of that his hands were shaking again.

He was told he was lucky that he didn’t have extensive brain damage, he didn’t have to learn to read, speak or write again. However, walking was a chore at first, holding a gun steady was hard for the first year and his coordination then. His hands shook more often than he'd like. Yet, this was still viewed as minor damage, a miracle even, a month long coma was tough but five years was straight up a hazard. Or so he was told. He should've died more than once, not counting being blown to shit. When Boss woke up he had seven new scars, over five years there were attempts for his life, shanking, smotherings and tampering with his life support. He wondered how many bets were placed, who placed them and if someone actually won.

The eggs started burning and the coffee pot was finally filled up, with one quick motion the eggs were on plate and Boss was sifting through the clutter of his utensils drawer. “You bloody fucking idiot.” it slipped out, a whisper into the empty apartment. He found a clean fork and took a cup from the windowsill.

Johnny’s cup.

A silly, gag gift that Johnny loved -A black cup that had a gun shaped handle. It was fucking uncomfortable to hold it for long periods of time, the ceramic being too sharp in certain places or the trigger guard was too small for Johnny's, well his fingers to loop through. But it was Johnny’s cup, another reminder that Boss couldn't get rid of. He poured the coffee into the cup and began to drink and eat his eggs.

Boss began to wash off the grease from the pan when he finished eating but not before he switched the radio on. He poured more coffee into the cup, a long sip of coffee, the plate was washed, another sip and the fork was cleaned. He reached for the cup, to take another drink but it was empty, the pot was also empty at this point, he could never get enough coffee, even if someone was to offer him a bath of coffee it still wouldn't be enough.

“You idiotic fucker.” He washed the cup and pot, dried off all the items, not noticing the words that slipped from him and put them back into their places. His workout was next, a light half hour long 40kg kettlebell workout, followed by three variations of thirty pull ups, squats, lunges and climbers. Then the salmon ladder until he looked like a train wreck, shower time. 3:47pm.

The shower was quick, 15 minutes at most but enough for Shaundi to have called him and to leave a text. _“Lukas Pérez, Morningstar informant, Magarac Island, 5 pm.”_ A target, a traitor and a _distraction_. He never met him but at this point, anyone working for that Belgian fucker was a traitor. He dried his hair off, combing it back and using the minimum amount of hairspray, a few, unruly strands fell onto his forehead. Boss could never quite tame his hair but he never really tried to. He lined his eyes with eyeliner, a habit that he doesn’t remember picking up. His sister maybe. Shaundi always said she was jealous of his eyeliner, that he somehow managed to look seductive _and_ pretty at the same time. He picked up the first shirt off the floor, a worn out dark purple shirt and threw on his black, leather jacket that had been ripped in one too many places. His jeans were thrown haphazardly into the corner beside his shoes. Both the jeans and the runners were put on, stained with old blood and vaguely smelling of gunpowder. Next were the car keys, wallet, sunglasses and his phone.

Boss grabbed his sniper rifle from beside the door and a few spare clips for it. He would need to make a stop at Friendly Fire soon, he was running out of grenades, most of the ammunition and especially rockets. He should be able to make do with whatever was left in the car. Swaggering down the stairs to the garage, he smirked and gave small grunts of acknowledgement to the “Hello Boss” and an amused snort when a new member practically plastered himself to the wall to avoid being in his path. He needed to look nonchalant, needed to lie to himself that Johnny’s death was just another death, that he was just getting sick. That he didn't care, that it would never affect him and that getting revenge mattered the most. He'll be fine then.

 

* * *

 

Apart from blowing shit up Boss found driving to be quite relaxing, so long drives filled with 80s music were right up his alley. No, not long drives, _speeding_ through traffic, running red lights and meandering between cars and pedestrians, _that_ was relaxing. The assassination was a success as always, quite clean too. That is until two Morningstar members showed up, in that moment Boss remembered why he was killing the fucker. That he was a Morningstar and that the Morningstar boss killed him. He made his way down from the statue, using the opposition's inattentiveness and anger at losing valuable information to his advantage. He circled them, picking up his heavy baseball bat from the boat on the way over. _He was going to bash their fucking heads in._

They really did not stand a chance against his brute force, his unadulterated rage and the swings of his bat. The cops would find the three corpses soon enough, one with a clean shot to the side of his head and the other two with faces fucked up beyond imagination, just bloody messes with parts of the skull caved in or splattered on the concrete. A beautiful, macabre painting. Much like a few years ago with members of the Brotherhood or the Ronin, a lot less property damage this time and a lot less decapitated heads strew around the city.

A feigned smile was present on the Boss’s face as he hummed and tapped his fingers to the song currently playing. He needed to calm down from his adrenaline rush, ignore the weird hollowness and bottle up whatever he was feeling, like a molotov cocktail ready to burn everything in its reach. Shaundi and Pierce would notice that he's distracted, they learned to read him and his small quirks before his mood changed. However, they still didn't know _when_ he would explode or how to calm him down with minimal casualties, not like Johnny.

Twenty minutes to the penthouse.

He took a shortcut through the crowds, almost running over an old couple and a skateboarding teenager. "Fucking move you wankers." A small part of him scolded him for not being careful, they were innocents, no use in taking out his anger on them. 

Ten minutes to the penthouse.

Thin Lizzy comes on and Boss speeds up, going faster and faster. Barely making the turns and most definitely running someone over, he wishes he could push the pedal further, drive faster, maybe crash into a fucking wall. Maybe he could drive away from whatever was happening to him. _'.....Spread the word around, the boys are back in town.'_ The white knuckle grip on the wheel is is enough to make the plastic groan.

He finally arrives at the penthouse’s garage and he is glad that no one is there to witness his breakdown. He hadn’t had a panic attack in _years_ , the last one he could remember was at the age of 15 before he joined the Saints, a few days before his birthday. When life was a constant shit show. Then he stopped having them, a week or so after joining, he killed the cause of them, no he snapped, he _finally_  fucking snapped and killed the bitch. _A 16-year-old finally snapping_ , it sounded absurd to him yet here he was. She had it coming for a long time anyway, it was self-defence for the things that would've come.

After he found people that cared about him _or at least showed him some semblance of care_ , he grew more confident. Sure, at first he was scared shitless to talk to anyone which was quite absurd considering that he didn't fear being shot at, drowning or being blown up. To him dying was as concerning as a fly on a wall, that indifference made him reckless he knew that but he never cared. He couldn't bring himself to care about his own well being. He made mistakes and he paid for them, he got shit for it too and he remembers one specific night when he was stabbed, he made his sister sew him up. She cried herself to sleep that night, cradling a bottle of whiskey. He promised that he wouldn’t drag her into his mess or ask her to sew him up again but each time he failed, but she’d gotten good at it. Started crying less and soaked up whatever knowledge he passed onto her, whether it was breaking someone's neck or stealing a car.

He got himself a new family, one that didn’t mind sewing him up or that he came home covered in blood, a family that he couldn't keep. Julius, Dex and Troy all fucking _traitors_. Johnny, Lin and Aisha became his closest family. Then it was Carlos a younger brother to him. _All dead_. It was his fault too, with Carlos definitely. He was too blind to see what was coming, he should’ve kept a closer eye on Carlos and sometimes, just sometimes he thought he saw him in a crowd of people or heard his voice. He hated being sentimental, dwelling on the past made him a different person. A person that died when he woke up from his coma.

He suspected that Shaundi and Pierce were next in line to die, but Boss couldn’t bring himself to cut them off. Boss did it to his sister, only seeing her when she needed him the most or if he had no other option, and he hated it, it _physically_ pained him that he cut her out of his life. She was better off without him. He'd risk his life to keep his family safe, the close one and the distant one. Hell, even the newest members of the Saints that didn’t have anyone’s trust would have that privilege, of their Boss. _the_ _Boss_ , trying his best to keep them safe.

**_Blood in, blood out but not when it can be prevented._ **

His chest hurt even more now and he was pretty sure that his heart was going to stop. His breaths were too shallow to get the proper amount of air supply and he was beginning to feel light headed. His chest felt as if someone was coiling barbed wire around him so tightly that it was cutting into his bones. The wire coiled around him tighter still, wrapping itself around his whole body and cutting off the air. He _could've_ prevented Johnny's death.

Years without panic attacks caused him to forget what to do but he knew he needed to breathe. It was his primal instinct, without air he’s dead and when he’s dead he can’t avenge Johnny.

It took him 40 minutes to calm down and within those minutes Boss thought that he was going to croak at least three times. His body felt as if someone took a crowbar to it and as if someone tried to hang him with a barbed wire. A sharp, throbbing pain was present at the base of his head, making his head spin and hard to think. His eyes felt dry and he blinked rapidly, trying to moisten them, a few tears dropped onto his bloodied jeans. He was shaking too, not like his usual minor tremors, it was wave after wave of full body shakes. He curled into himself and rested his head against the steering wheel, breathing as if he ran three marathons. Waiting for it all to pass.

Another 15 minutes passed before he began to gather himself. He turned off the radio not really wanting to listen to anything anymore. He looked into the rearview mirror and saw his eyes, bloodshot and red rimmed from the lack of consistent blinking. He slipped his sunglasses on, it was too obvious to hide it as being blazed out his mind. He wiped his cheeks and nose with his sleeve just to make sure there weren't any stray droplets.

He started the car up only to drive it the final few meters into the garage. He stepped out of the car and slammed the door. He wiped his clammy hands on his trousers but somehow they were still covered in cold sweat. The elevator ride up was too quick and Boss was already planning on making an elevator that opened to his room only. He could already imagine taking it up and face planting the bed mere minutes after arriving.

“Hi Boss,” a young Saint walks up to him, she's fidgety, obviously nervous but begins to tell him whatever she wants anyway. She looks to be barely sixteen underneath the makeup and Boss already started to consider a minimum age rule, seventeen at least because as tough as he was he didn’t want _children_ dying because of a shootout. He didn't want them fucked up like him, he already felt so much older than he really was. Maybe he should open a safe house for runaways, a safe haven for those who needed it? Nah, too much hassle right now, however, one day for sure. When’s he’s the king of kings.

“Listen, kid,” Boss doesn't recognise her, he isn’t even sure if she was even canonized yet, he hopes she wasn't and never will be. “If it’s not a life or death situation then not now.” The girl frowns but nods her head with understanding. "Come back to me tomorrow, a’ight?" She nods again but this time she gives a quite "Alright." He smiles at her, she seems like a good kid that gotten herself into a hectic life, he pats her head mechanically and probably ruins whatever hairstyle she had underneath her beanie.

He walked on, passing and doing the minimal amount of socializing, telling everyone a variation of "Not now" or "fuck off". He stops by where Shaundi and Pierce are, just to let Shaundi know that the asshole is dead

"You get any info from the guy?" Shaundi asks.

"Nah, wasn’t bothered."

"But what if he had something important, like about the Syndicate?"

"He didn’t."

"How d-"

"He _didn’t"_ ’ The conversation ended there, no more discussion.

He plans on going to bed, to sleep off the rest of the day but gets roped into a game of cards. He laughs half-heartedly at whatever jokes Pierce cracks and whoops both their asses in the game. He also won a new gun from Pierce and a nice stack of bills and a blunt from Shaundi, they really stood no chance against him. He cheated too well. Boss decided to agree to a meeting the next day, something about a final hit on the Morningstars, also an excuse to go be rowdy in a fancy restaurant. It’s almost 8 when he decides to turn in, flipping off Pierce when he says something along the lines of "Awh, the poor child needs his sleep, want me to tuck you in?"

He counted all fifteen steps that it takes him to go upstairs and the next twenty to his room. As soon as his door closed he started to shed his clothes down to nothing. He dropped them carelessly onto the floor and kicked his shoes under his bed, his sunglasses, keys and wallet were thrown onto his modest, cluttered desk. He pushed his phone under the first pillow right beside his butterfly knife. An old worn out thing, the black metal was scratched and the blade was splattered with old blood droplets that he never bothered cleaning off. It’s for the aesthetic he told everyone.

The bed gave a muffled thud when he collapses onto it and made himself comfortable, all he wanted right now was to meld into the bed itself and sleep. He was drained from the day, even if it was a lazy day for him, just one kill and a long sleep in. Yet the clock only showed 8.38pm and his eyelids were heavy. However, nature being the bitch she is sleep didn’t come for a long, long time. He kept rolling over and trying to find a comfortable position than he was too cold or too hot. The noise of people leaving for their own homes was too loud, each time the door slammed or someone laughed too loud he tossed to the other side. The lack of noise that followed was too calm and unnerving for him. Too much peace, a peace that should be filled with more productive things like murder or fraud.

Boss decided that a _drop_ of alcohol should help him sleep, yet half a bottle of rum later he was still awake, with a controller in his hand playing Dead Space, but two and a half hours later he was bored again. He took another mouthful of rum and tried to make himself comfortable, the clock read 2.06am and as buzzed as he was he simply couldn't fall asleep. The weird hollow feeling was back though, weighing him down like concrete shoes and the bed was swallowing him up. He thought about lighting up the blunt but decided against it, he was gonna save it for when he really needed it. For Johnny's funeral. Fuck. They didn't have a fucking body to put beside Aisha. _Fuck_.

He visited her the first chance he got, it was at the unholy hour of 4 am. "Hey, Aisha. Dunno how to tell you this but Johnny-boy is dead." He whispered to the cold stone slab. "Guess you would've known that by now if you're watching and all that." He placed the aster flowers on her grave, the same flowers that Johnny left for her each week. "I'm pretty sure he had some sort of hero complex or some shit like that, because who else would be so fucking stupid to stay behind? Your death did that to him, made him more reckless, more...stupid...I'm sorry I fucked up. I should've dragged him by his hair out of that plane." Boss began to rip out whatever weeds had grown over the past week, probably with more force than he needed. "I know that he probably won't join you in heaven, hah, I don't even believe in the afterlife but I hope that you two get to see each other." After he was finished with ripping out the weeds he began to pat himself down. "I hope you two get to be happy again." _I miss you both_ , those were the words that he couldn't say out loud, the words that made him choke up a bit. He visited Carlos next, mostly to water the flowers left by his mother and two younger siblings, he told him about Johnny and what his next plans were. He missed him too. He hoped he was hanging out with his brother and causing an uproar in the afterlife.

He wanted to fucking drown right now, drown in his feelings and self-pity but he couldn't, wouldn't because if he breaks then his rising empire would come crashing down around him. He didn't want to be the king of ashes. He is the pillar of the Saints and no Saint will ever see him break because of a Death took someone away. But, he was alone now and the emotions caught up to him. So, he let himself mourn the loss of his best friend, his family, the only other original Saint. Once the tears started falling they didn't stop for a long time, he buried his face in his pillow. Not to muffle his too loud sobs in the empty room but to simply have the closest feeling to being hugged and consoled. Boss blamed the alcohol for the sudden wet cheeks that he had and the sudden overwhelming feeling of loneliness and need to curl up in his bed like he was 6 again.

Most of all Boss decided that he was going to slowly kill that Belgian fucker who took Johnny away from him. _His_ Johnny, Johnny the once living, breathing embodiment of the Saints. Johnny fucking Gat.

“You fucking idiot, you should've made him come with you.”


End file.
